


the curious case of kamilah al-jamil

by nebulousviolet



Category: The Good Place
Genre: Angst With A Happyish Ending, Gen, we love introspection!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 10:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17323037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: Because the truth is terrible and it is clear in the paintings; no matter how hard she tried, Kamilah Al-Jamil could not hate her sister, and still can’t.





	the curious case of kamilah al-jamil

**Author's Note:**

> heyy uh i just binged three seasons of the good place in three days and a) the episode with tahani and kamilah made me cry and b) i love them both

HERE’S THE THING: Kamilah Al-Jamil spent the better part of her childhood desperately trying to hate her sister. The first half had been her parents’ doing, until the little voice in Kamilah’s head that told her to _stop_ starting telling her that maybe she should just continue, actually, just ignore the look on Tahani’s face and keep going, keep painting, keep cruelly pushing her away. If she’s honest, she’s always been terrified that maybe Tahani hates her back. But she doesn’t, because Tahani is Tahani, because if Kamilah has tried to hate her sister then Tahani has tried to love her even still, and the weight of that love is _too fucking much_ , too much for Kamilah to handle because Kamilah is - let’s face it - a coward when it comes to her parents. She doesn’t know how she’d ever explain any of this to Tahani, because to Tahani, she has only ever been her bitch sister, their parents’ favourite. Maybe it’s better this way. Tahani and Kamilah never stood a chance, anyway.

 

.

 

The night her sister almost dies, Kamilah is three cocktails in and trying not to cry in the bathroom. Her head hurts and her hands won’t stop shaking _but Mum and Dad would be so proud, right?_ , so Kamilah wipes her eyes and straightens her back and goes back into the club to do whatever the hell it is she’s supposed to be doing right now. It’s almost soothing, a blanket of white noise an endless praise, and for a second Kamilah can almost believe that she actually did all this for herself and not for her dead parents. Not for very long, though, because Tahani isn’t here, and if Kamilah was _really_ doing this for herself then some deep dark part of her knows that Tahani would be.

Except she is, apparently, and even in some waitress’s costume Tahani is still pretty, and some part of it tears Kamilah apart more than it should. Her sister is ranting and raging but she isn’t really listening - Tahani always says much of the same, and Kamilah always responds in a way that’s sure to break her heart, and then they pull it together for another six months before resetting and repeating. Except this time Kamilah’s words actually seem to get to her, except this time Kamilah has to swallow the bile in her throat and try not to scream as her sister pulls down the golden statue of her likeness and Tahani stands frozen to the spot as it comes crashing down. And Kamilah can’t help it - she jumps up and screams and screams and screams and someone pushes Tahani out of the way and the crowd begin to chant Kamilah’s name, but she can’t stop screaming - and she feels, God, she doesn’t know how she feels. _My sister nearly died!_ she wants to yell, but Mum and Dad would be so upset if she made a scene, so Kamilah sits back down and orders an obscene amount of shots as Tahani hurries out of the club. _Come back._

Good riddance.

 

.

 

It isn’t Tahani’s fault she likes pretty things, and it isn’t Tahani’s fault that she’s a pretty thing herself - her face is soft and her hair is bouncy and she favours pastels above anything and wouldn’t be seen dead in separates. Kamilah’s been taught to be all hard edges, alternative and cutting-edge and avant-garde, but Tahani is a pretty thing in a world that has outgrown pretty things, in a world that Tahani is too good for, anyway. Sometimes Kamilah aches, physically aches, at the sight of a pink floral print, at some stranger’s waist-length hair, at a thousand reminders and missed opportunities of the sister Kamilah snubbed. One of these days she’ll pick up the phone and consider calling - yeah, maybe she deleted Tahani’s number after the statue incident and the Buddhist monastery, but Tahani is her _sister_ and Kamilah can’t help but have her number memorised anyway - but she’ll always set it down because Kamilah can never quite face the consequences of her actions, just as Tahani can never face the motivations behind her own.

But it doesn’t matter, because even if their parents despised pretty things, and even though the world still favours Kamilah, Tahani has still done some good for it, more good than Kamilah, anyway, and perhaps pretty things aren’t so useless after all.

 

.

  


“Tahani?” she says, and the silence behind her sister’s bedroom door is crushing. She’s fifteen years old and their parents still don’t love Tahani, or Kamilah, really, and Tahani cried herself to sleep last night, and the night before that, too. “Are you…”

She can’t ask Tahani if she’s alright, because Kamilah knows that she isn’t, and she can’t ask Tahani anything else, because years of being pitted against each other make all other words hollow, make Kamilah herself feel scooped clean. She thinks Tahani might be crying, but she’s not sure, and that’s worse than anything else. “Tahani,” she begins again, and her voice cracks and breaks, cracks and breaks like the fraught relationship between her and her sister, the weight of their parents’ expectations finally bearing down on her and making it hard to breathe. Kamilah bites her lip, resists the urge to storm into Tahani’s lilac-painted bedroom and hug her so tight that her arms ache. If Kamilah were a better person, she would. But Kamilah isn’t a better person, and so she sighs and Tahani doesn’t say anything, silent and reflective all at once.

Kamilah walks back to her own room in silence. She thinks maybe their mother would be proud. It makes her more sick than anything else.

 

.

 

It’s Budapest and Tahani’s friend, Chidi or whatever his name is, is asking Kamilah to apologise, and Kamilah swallows, looks at a gallery full of art that is just Kamilah-and-Tahani, a gallery full of hurt and loss and pain and, yeah, she can’t help it, and she sends Chidi back to Tahani stuttering.

Because the truth is terrible and it is clear in the paintings; no matter how hard she tried, Kamilah Al-Jamil could not hate her sister, and still can’t. And maybe the real reason why she shuts the exhibit down after Tahani refuses an omelette isn’t because of her own egocentrism (although that’s probably part of it) and is instead because while Tahani could never win Kamilah’s approval, Kamilah could never win Tahani’s, either. Tahani can’t possibly know that this exhibit is about her, but part of Kamilah wishes she did. _I’m not just a bitch, you know,_ she wants to tell her. _Tahani, I love you._ In the end, Kamilah never really was enough, not for her parents. It wasn’t worth it, in the end. Whether or not Tahani can understand that is something else entirely.

But Tahani does understand eventually, and loops her handcuffed arms around Kamilah, and Kamilah is fifteen years old again, and Kamilah is thirty, and there is never enough time in the world, not for Tahani and not for her. “I’m sorry,” they say at the same time, and the weight of the love between them is no longer crushing, just comfortable.

“What do we owe to each other?” Tahani asks, her voice a whisper, and she untangles herself from Kamilah, her face knowing even as someone frees her wrists. Kamilah doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but the words seem important, so she nods. She names the exhibition after them. It’s the least she can do.

 

.

 

 _What do we owe to each other?_ Kamilah thinks when they find Tahani’s body in a bar in Calgary. Nevermind what she was doing in Canada in the first place, or why she was with an ethics professor, a Florida dancer and some scratchcard winner slash...whatever. Tahani nearly died two years ago but she’s actually dead this time and it makes Kamilah sick, almost as sick as the headlines announcing Tahani’s death do when they refer to her only as Kamilah’s sister. Kamilah hasn’t been much of a sister. Kamilah has only just become one, really, and now Tahani’s gone.

 _What do we owe to each other?_ Tahani’s last words to her seem both important and farcical at the same time. And it isn’t accurate to say that Kamilah is overcome with grief, because that’s not who Kamilah is, exactly, but instead she’s barely riding the wave of it, barely keeping afloat with albums and exhibitions and whatever else keeps her busy. But Kamilah’s a slave to her own curiosity and she googles it in the end and fuck, it’s a three hour lecture, but she recognises his face, and she’s crying by the end.

 _That’s what she was trying to tell me_ , she realises, and Kamilah hurts all over. _I love you. I love you. I love you._ It’s too late for her to tell Tahani that now, but maybe in another time, another place, she’ll hear it from wherever she is. Certainly someplace good; Tahani raised too much money for charity to go somewhere else. Kamilah imagines Tahani in a place where the sun is always shining and people have always known Tahani as Tahani and not her sister and the wardrobes are always filled with poppy-printed tea-length gowns. She laughs. “I love you, Tahani,” she says, and she shakes with it, and Kamilah Al-Jamil thinks that she was a fool to think she could ever hate her sister at all.

 


End file.
